Chela De Ferrari, associate director of Hamlet at the Brighton Festival (May 9-11), was told by the specialists that her actors would not be able to cope; that they simply wouldn't be able to do it.
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00:00Good morning, my name is Phil Hewitt, Group Arts Editor at South Sussex Newspapers.
00:06Really lovely this morning to speak to Chayla.
00:08Now, you are bringing to the Brighton Festival something really intriguing,
00:12something really striking, something you were told you would not be able to do,
00:17yet by the end of the year you will have taken it to 50 cities.
00:21It's Hamlet, it's May 9th to the 11th in Brighton for the Brighton Festival,
00:27but the point is it's a cast of people with Down syndrome.
00:30Why? What made you decide to do that?
00:35That's right.
00:37Well, it has to do with one of the actors that he was a gnasher in La Plaza for more than three years
00:49when we had an internal event,
00:52and everybody was supposed to present themselves to the new cast that was arriving in La Plaza.
01:02And Jaime Cruz, in this opportunity, instead of presenting himself as,
01:08I'm Jaime Cruz, I'm an usher,
01:10he will present himself as an actor.
01:13That really, I have talked with him so many times and he never told me something similar.
01:24He wanted to say this that day,
01:26and I invited him for a coffee.
01:30And in that long coffee,
01:33he told me that what he really wanted to do is to be in the stage.
01:39He loved to be an usher and self-progressed.
01:43From that, then, you've got this cast of eight playing Hamlet.
01:46Now, what is the significance of the fight?
01:49Why is it important that these are people who do have Down syndrome?
01:53What are you saying with this?
01:57Yes, we want the audience
02:03to find beauty where they don't expect it.
02:11Traditionally, the role of Hamlet falls in the shoulders of one iconic, celebrated,
02:20very classical trained actor.
02:26To have eight actors with Down syndrome,
02:31of course, it's a provocation.
02:35But one that confronts us with the central question,
02:41to be or not to be.
02:43What does it mean to be for people who don't find spaces
02:48where they are considered, where they're taken into account?
02:51And yes, so I wish that the audience will not only find beauty
03:06in ways of representing that's very different
03:11when a traditional actor does,
03:15but also connect emotionally
03:19with persons that usually are not part of their lives.
03:24Yes.
03:24And understand and question also themselves.
03:28Who am I as a neurotypical person
03:33and have this interesting connection?
03:37And lots of people told you,
03:38you can't do this, this won't work,
03:40but it has.
03:41Yes.
03:42Yes.
03:45The specialist in the condition told us
03:51you will probably never be able even to open the,
03:57have the opening.
03:59You will not be able to rehearse more than an hour and a half
04:02because they will not be able to concentrate.
04:04You will not be able to have them alone
04:06in the, in, as we do in the, in the show
04:10without guidance.
04:12And, and we have open almost in 40 cities
04:19around the world during this,
04:22after the pandemic, during this last three years.
04:25So.
04:26It's a phenomenal and very special achievement.
04:29Congratulations.
04:30Really lovely to speak to you.
04:32I hope you have a very, very happy time in Brighton.